Experience the best of Gulu

Gulu stands on a rolling plain in northern Uganda at about 1,100 metres, with the dry grassland and scattered trees of the Acholi sub-region around it. It is the north's main market, university and transport centre, and the roads of the region start here. Its modern history is tied to the long conflict in the north, which ended in the mid-2000s.

Murchison Falls National Park, where the Nile forces itself through a narrow cleft before dropping to the plain, lies to the south-west, with elephants, giraffes, lions and hippos along the river. Nearer to town, Fort Patiko, a nineteenth-century fort among granite outcrops, was used as a base by Samuel Baker's expedition. The Nile at Karuma Falls lies to the south.

Acholi cooking centres on millet bread, groundnut paste and malakwang, a sour stew of hibiscus leaves, with smoked fish and beans alongside. Market stalls in town pile up cassava, sesame and onions. Rain falls mostly between April and October, and the dry months run from December to February.